RUTIF Background and Key Findings

Background

Arapahoe County has experienced a large number of 35 acre or greater parcel creations in the eastern portion of the County in previous years. These types of parcels have been created without the requirement for any land-use approval from the County and therefore the County does not have a way to have these new developments pay for the impacts they create, as well as services they expect once residential development is constructed. Furthermore, there are perceptions that there are disproportionate responsibilities for transportation improvements allocated to single family homes that are required to to be processed through the County's land use process versus the 35 acre (and above) parcels.

Financing of rural roadway improvements currently come from developer contributions associated with impacts created by their developments, which are reviewed through the County's land-use process. Currently the County's requirements are two lanes pavement, accel/decel lanes as required, curb/gutter/sidewalk where required etc. along the frontage of the property being processed. In rural areas, the cost of the improvements us typically in excess of the property being developed and therefore becomes burdensome and creates unintended consequences of the proliferation of 35 or greater parcels being created. The other form of funding rural roadways is by the use of County Road and Bridge Funds or CIP funds. Both of the County funds are property tax funds and the amount of taxes collected are not adequate to provide funding for rural roadway improvements or maintenance as it relates to the amount of tax collected from an individual property versus the need or impact. The County's intent would be to apply the recommended rural transportation impact fee mechanism to both County regulated and non-regulated land uses in an equitable manner.
The primary goal of the project is to evaluate a realistic range of financing options for rural roadway improvements as identified In the County's 2035 Transportation Plan. This effort will build upon the previous work performed and presented in the Impact Fee and Maintenance Funding Options Report prepared with the 2035 Transportation Plan.

Key Findings

The general conclusions for the 2035 Arapahoe County Transportation Plan and the analysis performed for this fee are:

There will be new growth in eastern Arapahoe County east of Gun Club Road between now and 2040.

The new growth and development will generate a significant demand for construction of capital improvements to the County Roadway Network if the desired level of service is to be maintained.

The 2035 Arapahoe County Transportation Plan indicates a need for approximately $700 to $900 million in capital roadway improvements out to 2035. Of this total, roughly $450 million is anticipated to be County responsibility with the remaining portion of the total coming from private sources (developers), local governments, State and/or Federal sources. The portion in the study area for the fee is approximately $300 million.

The County's current fiscal structure cannot adequately fund the road capital improvements needed to accommodate the expected growth and development without either increasing the Capital Expenditure Fund or establishing a new funding source for roadway improvements.

A legally defensible and rational nexus between land use and impacts created by such has been established with the work performed to date. The following summarizes the findings of the previous work.